Kashi. Daniela Jodorf

loved each other.

      Suddenly, Paul remembered the woman, who had talked to him last night. You have to listen to your inner voice, she had told him. He had never heard this voice and seen his feelings more clearly, and he had never been this strongly aware of his failures and his guilt.

      For lunch, he met Phil in a deli around the corner of Julliard. Phil waited at their favorite table in the back reading a newspaper when Paul came in.

      “Hey, you look better today.” Phil sounded worried.

      “Something strange happened to me, Phil. I walked home last night and had a coffee in a bar in Soho when a woman approached my table and sat down."

      “Ooh, that´s eerie!” Phil laughed. Paul looked at him almost inflictive.

      “I did not know her! She spoke of some change that I was facing and that I would be traveling to Berlin soon.”

      “Emerson called me this morning.”

      “Yes, Phil. Get it now? She told me, we would have an engagement in Berlin before it was even set!”

      “That is spooky!”

      “She said many cryptic things and appeared to know everything about me. She said I should be aware of my inner voice and not to judge my future experiences.”

      “How can you not judge a thing like that: somebody telling you your future out of the blue?”

      “When I wanted to ask the waitress if she knew that woman, she told me she had not seen anyone at my table."

      Phil gave Paul a serious look. “Wow. Did you imagine all this?”

      “No. She was there. I am absolutely sure. She held my hand and pushed it on the table to make me listen to her. I have felt her. I know what she smells like. I would recognize her anywhere. I have no idea, why the waitress did not see her. Her presence was strong and charismatic.

      Her words were true for me. I feel this strong inner pressure, Phil. There is some sense of wrong waking up inside of me and I am trying to fight it back, to drown it, but it keeps creeping up from my subconscious mind. It´s not enough to tell myself that this will pass, that it is all right. I have to do something about it, but I don´t know what and how.”

      Phil turned pale and looked very worried now. “Why? Do you know why, Paul?”

      “It has something to do with the people, our audience. I feel misunderstood, wrongly interpreted. I feel like speaking a foreign language that nobody understands.”

      Phil smiled again. “That is what music is, Paul, a foreign language and we are lucky and can be happy if the people, not many, but only a few, are able to understand it and maybe speak it, too.”

      Paul disagreed strongly. “No, Phil. That is not true, it´s much too defensive. I have had moments of complete unity. The audience, the musicians and the music merged into one conscious being and they understood, without being able to speak any language. There was no need for explanation or translation. It was a transmission from heart to heart, not from mind to mind, and it was bliss; pure bliss, Phil. But I have not seen this for a very long time.”

      Phil pondered in silence. He spoke with a low voice again. “These moments are rare and precious. I know. When did you last experience that?”

      “Two or three years ago.

      Phil nodded and looked out of the window to avoid eye contact. “You are a very lucky guy, Paul. I know, I haven´t told you this before. But…, I have always admired you for what you have: talent, success, love, friendship, chances… Your life has always been so full of chances, Paul. I think you are not even aware of that!”

      Paul gazed onto the street. “You think, I am ungrateful?”

      Phil nodded almost invisibly without turning toward his friend again.

      ◊◊◊

      Paul took the metro at Lincoln Center Station. The train was surprisingly empty for a Saturday in November. The Christmas shopping season had already started several weeks ago, and Paul was used to crowded trains carrying citizens and foreigners packed to the limits. Today he even caught a seat and allowed his thoughts to wander as soon as the train accelerated jerkily. Phil´s surprising confession was disturbing. Paul had never thought of himself as being somehow privileged. Of course, things had worked well, but there had also been failures and frustrations, pains and sorrows, losses and regrets. Did he ask for something so outrages, when he felt the need to be heard and understood? There was something higher within the art of music, something sacred, deep and full of meaning. For Paul, this was the essence and the purpose of his work. And whatever he did or did not accomplish in his life, did not add up to this soul of music. In fact, it did not matter in the face of this numinous quality of sound and vibration.

      When he left his apartment at seven to take a cab to Lincoln Center, where he played a string concert for violoncello this evening, anxiety spread in his mind and his body. It was not stage-fright. He never felt nervous before a performance. Paul feared the end of the concert and the reaction he would have to face.

      He got through the program flawlessly. The other strings, two violins and a string bass, performed highly professional. Paul was completely in the flow and rhythm of the music, concentrated to the point. His heart was widely open when he experienced every single emotion drawn on the canvas of imagination by the strings – a full cycle of life´s experiences, of happiness and pain, gain and loss, love and hate. And then, again, in the end, the magical moment of silence, when the numinous could become tangible. Could… It was for him; and also for his colleagues, he witnessed. But as he looked anxiously at the people in the audience, he did not find the recognition he was longing for so desperately. Empty eyes looked at him once again. There was no glance of wonder, neither love nor awe. Like always Paul reaped a strong, never-ending applause. But it meant nothing to him. The silence was more important, he knew, but its magic had once more been overheard.

      ◊◊◊

      The November passed quickly and Paul seemed to feel better; most of the time his mind was calm and serene. Only the concerts reminded him of the hidden pain that he tried to suppress as good as possible. After almost every single performance, he had to be alone to force down the sorrow that tightened his chest and made his mind swirl. What was wrong with him? Where did this pain come from? What could he do about it? Thought initiated counter-thought, all fed by the pain he did not want to acknowledge, the dejection that he craved to get rid of so strongly. But his mind was unable to come up with a relieving solution. He was stuck and he knew it.

      In these moments he always remembered the woman from Soho. Sometimes he hated her for scaring him so much and worsening his pain. Sometimes he thought she was part of a nightmare that would end soon. Other times he longed to see her again, to be able to talk to her without defense and free from fear. There had been some promise in her appearance, he felt, but he was unable to grasp the meaning of it.

      When he packed for the four week trip to Europe, Paul suddenly felt hope again. He went with an extremely talented orchestra that would perform at Europe´s most recognized concert halls. In many of his previous trips to the old countries, the European audiences appeared to him well versed and sensitive in their perception of classical music. They seemed to understand the old masters much better than the Americans, but they approached modern composers like him much more skeptical and prejudiced. The critics, on the other hand, loved his compositions, compared him to idols like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. But he had never given much about the critic's opinion. The audience was Paul´s only measure for the quality of his work.

      The suitcase was packed and Paul did what he always did before he left: he called his mother in Boston.

      “Hey Mom, I am leaving tomorrow!”

      “Toi, toi, toi,” she said meaning wish you luck. “Say ´Hello´ to Berlin.”

      “You can come with me, I have asked you several times.”

      “No, Paul.” She laughed. “You are the vagabond! I prefer to be at home for